Dsiclaimer: Spooks characters belong to Kudos and the BBC

A/N: This is the follow-up to 'The Inevitability of Gradualness' and is set post 5.4 in that lovely AU where 5.5 didn't happen...

Thanks Em, Kate and Nat :)

The Certainty of Love

Tuesday

Harry watched Ruth cross the Grid, a pile of folders clutched to her chest. He had lost count of the number of times he'd done that. It seemed as if she'd always been there, in his Section, in his heart. He struggled to remember the time before she arrived in Thames House. It felt like a lifetime ago. Her eyes met his for a moment and a smile flickered briefly across her face before she looked away.

The awkwardness following their late-night encounter in his office had slowly abated and they'd settled into a daily routine. Things were not as they'd been before – they couldn't be – but they had managed to find a way to continue working together despite the unresolved feelings between them. He tried his best to ignore the memories of that evening: the sensation of her body wrapped around him; the taste of her skin; her desire for him; his desire for her, but it was difficult. Very difficult. She'd left him in an emotional limbo. She clearly felt something for him but he was beginning to doubt that things would progress any further despite her assertion that she would find her way to him.

He'd contemplated asking her out to dinner again, wondering if she might feel more comfortable discussing the subject on neutral territory. The longer things dragged on, the more pessimistic he became. He wanted to know one way or another but, with no firm decision from her, he could still hold on to the hope that she might want to take their relationship further.

-----

"I hear you're going to the anti-terrorism seminar in Warwick."

"News travels fast in this place." There was an unsuppressed bitterness in his voice that made Ruth flinch a little.

"Not really, it's just Adam mentioned he was going to the JIC on Friday instead of you…"

There was a click as Harry put the lid back on his pen. He frowned at the piece of paper on the desk in front of him and then looked up at her.

"Seems the DG has a pressing engagement elsewhere, so I've been volunteered to attend the final day of discussions and the closing reception. To cap it all, I have to deliver his bloody speech, which will no doubt be fulsome in its praise of our allies and turgid in the extreme."

Ruth gave a small laugh. "Maybe you could do some judicious editing?"

"And end up with my balls as a desk ornament for the DG? I don't think so."

She blushed slightly at the comment and looked away from him. Her left hand was worrying at the crumpled corner of one of the files she held. Harry wondered if she always needed a prop of some sort. Something to occupy those fidgety fingers.

"Sorry." He smiled but her eyes wouldn't meet his and he felt his guts twist in a way that had become painfully familiar.

"That lot for me?" He indicated the files she was still clutching.

"Um, yes." She held them out to him and managed a weak smile.

His eyes never left her face as he took the pile of folders from her.

"I, er, I should get on. Lots to do." And she was gone, leaving a faint trace of her perfume lingering in his office.

-----

"Those surveillance reports finished yet?"

"Yes. I didn't think you were in that much of a rush for them?" Ruth squinted at him, her eyes tired from too much time in front of her computer screen.

"No, I'm not. I was just wondering if they were ready." Harry perched on the edge of Adam's desk; there was clearly something more than surveillance reports on his mind.

Ruth's gaze returned to her screen then shifted to the documents on her desk. She realised she was holding her breath. Was it time for that conversation?

"Would you like to go to Warwick?"

"Warwick?"

"Yes."

With you? The question was unspoken.

He interpreted her silence as doubt. Was she thinking he was inviting her to spend the weekend with him? Effectively, that's what he was doing. The problem clearly lay in the nature of the suggestion. Was it time away together to discuss things, or a blatant invitation to share his bed?

"I just thought you might like a break. There are various events being laid on for the delegates, trips out, that sort of thing. The Saturday is a sort of wind down day – they get to do a few touristy things as a reward for staying the course."

As he spoke, Harry fiddled with a paper aeroplane that had been sitting on Adam's desk. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he was trying to work out why such an item would be there.

"It's for Wes."

"What?" It took him a moment to realise Ruth had been watching his hands the whole time. "Oh, right. So why didn't he take it home?"

"I don't think it's perfected yet. He and Zaf were discussing different methods of making them..." She stopped, aware that she was probably raising more questions than she was answering.

At any other time Harry would have been wondering why two of his officers had been discussing the aerodynamic properties of paper planes on the Grid, but he had more pressing things on his mind; like getting a reply from Ruth.

"So, the weekend, what do you think?"

She hesitated. "I-I haven't been to Warwick for quite a while."

Was this a positive response or was she tormenting him?

Her eyes, which had been everywhere but on him, suddenly met his. "Yes, I'd love to go."

He looked at her, unsure he'd heard correctly. "You'll come then?"

"Yes." There was a ghost of a smile on her lips.

"Excellent."

"I'll come up on Friday evening, after work."

"I can organise a car for you."

"No. I shall go on the train."

He was going to argue, tell her he could send his driver to get her but he didn't. The fact that she'd agreed to go was enough of a victory.

"I'll sort out a room for you. The whole hotel is being used for the seminar so there are plenty to spare."

This time it was subtext: your own room.

"I can do-"

"No, it's fine. I don't mind, really. And I'm not going to make you listen to my speech either."

"I thought it was the DG's speech?"

"Possession is nine-tenths of the law, isn't it?"

"Apparently so."

"You'll come to the closing reception though, won't you?"

"Yes, yes I will. Its formal dress, isn't it?"

"It is. You'll need to pack your glad rags." He placed the now crumpled paper aeroplane back onto Adam's desk.

Ruth watched him walk back into his office and smiled to herself. He was whistling.